Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Thompson), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to yield the time. I point out, it is against Senate rules ever to impugn a Senator's motive. I want to make sure the Senator does not violate that rule. Also, I will be happy to explain my position. Trade adjustment assistance never included health care and I think it is a mistake without having any idea, and I think it is a serious mistake to do so for one industry. The Senator is correct.

Mr. NICKLES. I wish to correct the Record. I think I stated in the Record earlier that the total cost was $179 million, plus the pay. Now I am told by staff that the $58 million is already included in the $179 million, so I wish to correct that. The total cost estimate by CBO is $179 million, not $237 million. I misread. I ask unanimous consent that this chart be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.

Mr. NICKLES. Let me reiterate to my friend from Minnesota, I have already supported trade adjustment assistance. Trade adjustment assistance is to provide assistance to people who lose their jobs in training. That is the purpose of the program. The average cost has been about $10,000 a year. About one out of three who are eligible have participated in the program to be retrained to get a job. I support that. Now our colleagues are saying, in addition to that, we want to offer health care, and health care up to 2 years. If people believe we are going to take a program such as this and say to retired steelworkers, we are going to give this benefit for 1 year, I do not believe it. The bill they referred to, S. 2189, is a permanent program and its cost is estimated to be $13 billion, not a 1-year program, not a couple- hundred-million-dollar program. It is a permanent program. That is their objective, to have the Federal Government pick up retired steelworkers' health care costs. I do not think that is fair to taxpayers. I do not think it is fair to other industries such as textiles, the auto industry, airlines, and others that have also suffered losses. So I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) and the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Thompson), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchison) the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Murkowski) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, one, I compliment Senator Thompson for the speech he made as well as Senator Gregg from New Hampshire for this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. This amendment would strike the wage subsidy program. I am glad we are going to have an up- or-down vote on it; and I hope this amendment will be adopted overwhelmingly, because this wage subsidy program is a bad idea. There are a lot of bad ideas floating around. The Senator from Tennessee just mentioned a couple of them. It bothers me that evidently the Democrats who put together this package--and I say that because the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program passed in the Finance Committee without adequate discussion. We spent all day on trade promotion authority, and trade promotion authority passed, 18 to 3 in the Finance Committee. Trade adjustment assistance was rushed through the Committee. The two hour rule was raised and some would even question whether we finished it in time because of this objection, and whether it passed too late. There was not enough discussion. I am on that committee. Well, what is it? It is the Federal Government saying: if you lose your job, presumably because of trade, and you take another job, the Federal Government will come in and pick up half the difference if your second job is less money. I would like to have colleagues who support this come and defend it. Why are we doing this for so many of people? I question the wisdom of the proposal. I will just give you an example. What if you are a Senator whose wife just happens to work. Maybe it is a high-tech firm, which closes. Someone could say it was because of trade that it closed. And so she became unemployed, or became reemployed, and took a lesser paying job. So Uncle Sam is going to write my spouse a check for $5,000. As the Senator from Tennessee said, this is just an opening round. Proponents will attempt to expand this program, should it pass. Why are we going to have the Federal Government setting wage rates? And guaranteeing these wage rates? How ridiculous of an idea can it be? How socialistic can it be? Maybe people don't not like to use that word, but socialism is the Government setting wages and prices. This is pretty socialistic. I am embarrassed as to how bad this idea is. I compliment my colleague and friend from New Hampshire for raising this, pointing this out to the Senate. There is no income test. We could be writing checks for people who could have $1 million in assets. Presumably, if they lost a job and then took a lesser job, Uncle Sam will write them a check for half the difference in many cases, even if they are millionaires. What kind of sense does that make? I am embarrassed for the Senate. I am bothered by this process the majority leader has put in that says: To take up trade promotion, you also have to take trade adjustment assistance. Incidentally, when we are doing this, we will also put in a new wage subsidy program. We will have a brand-new benefit for trade adjustment assistance, including the Federal Government, for the first time ever, picking up 70 percent of health care costs not only for directly affected workers but for upstream workers as well, defined broadly enough to where no one knows how many hundreds of thousands of people might qualify for that benefit. In addition, we will have a brand-new wage subsidy paid for by taxpayers. I have an interest. I have a son. I have three daughters. They are all taxpayers, and I am too. They don't want to pay for this benefit. Their taxes are plenty high. All of a sudden, we are talking about new entitlements for people. Where is the money coming from? We have a deficit now. Somebody said: If passed, this new program is limited to $50 million. What proponents are trying to do is get this new entitlement started. Then we will see how much it costs 10 years from now, and supporters will probably try to raise the limit from $5,000 to such sums as necessary. You name it. Entitlements can grow like crazy. I would hate to think we would adopt this, and then 10 years from now find out we have a multibillion-dollar program and ask: Where did this come from? This was a partisan proposal jammed in on top of trade promotion, basically extortion, saying, if you don't give us this, we will not give you trade. The Senate needs to reject this proposal. This is a bad idea. When we talk about other countries, we encourage them to move to free markets. I am embarrassed that some of us are trying to move in their socialistic direction. Wow. As a matter of fact, I had a constituent in my office a few minutes ago. He was listening to the Senator from New Hampshire. I told him I had to join this debate. I explained the amendment. My constituent's response was: I can't believe they are trying to do this. This is about income redistribution where the Federal Government is paying wages, we will have a wage guarantee program. This is a wage subsidy program; that is exactly what this is. This is part of a very bad idea, a very bad process. It needs to be resoundingly rejected. I urge my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support the Gregg amendment and strike this brand-new entitlement program. If there are proponents, I would love to have a dialog and find out how this will work and find out if a millionaire could benefit from this program; and find out if someone's spouse, who maybe is from a very wealthy family, if they could benefit from this program; or find out, if I was working for $50,000, and I happened to be over 50 and I decided to take a job for $40,000, if I can use that money to cover my golf bets. The Senator from Missouri mentioned maybe this is good for the golfers. I happen to be a golfer. I like that idea. But I have never thought of the Federal Government paying for my golf side bets. I can't believe we are even considering this. What an embarrassment. This amendment should be passed, and it should be passed overwhelmingly. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Murkowski), the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Lott) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Per year or $179 million over a 10-year period?

Mr. NICKLES. Does the program last for 12 months? How many months of health care are we providing for retired steelworkers?

Mr. NICKLES. Just the steelworkers.

Mr. NICKLES. I am happy to know that. So if COBRA costs $700 a month----

Mr. NICKLES. I wonder, as well, as the sponsors of the amendment are very close to the steelworkers, if they can provide this Senator, over the next couple of days, what the benefits are and what the benefit package costs for retirees. Those are collectively bargained packages. I could probably find that on the Internet. These are packages they provide for retirees. Given this fact, I would like to know, are we subsidizing plans that are very generous, comparable to Federal employees? I don't know.

Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate the clarification. If a company went bankrupt in 2004, they could receive benefits under this amendment, is that correct, up to 12 months?

Mr. NICKLES. One additional question. If a young person--say my son, or your son, is twenty-years-old, goes to work for a steel company and works there for 12 years or 15 years. Now they are 35 years old. Company XYZ goes bankrupt, so now that individual would they be eligible for this benefit at the age of 35?

Mr. NICKLES. I am just trying to learn what is in the Senator's amendment. I am going to debate against it in a minute, but I want to educate myself on what I am debating. The cost is $179 million over 10 years, but the program for steelworkers only lasts for 1 year, the 12 months' benefits. So it is actually about $179 million for 1 year's benefits for the eligible steelworkers in the Senator's amendment?

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Murkowski) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I see a few of the sponsors of the amendment are present. Maybe either one of the sponsors, since they know more about this amendment than I, might be able to respond. I am wondering how much this amendment will cost. How much does it cost per family, per beneficiary? Would either the Senator from West Virginia or the Senator from Maryland tell me that? Many times health care per family costs $7,000; sometimes steelworkers have very generous plans. Could they give me some idea of what it costs per family?

Mr. NICKLES. I will ask either Senator, the duration of the amendment to benefit only the steelworkers is for 12 months. I happen to have great respect for the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from West Virginia. I have a feeling that if that 12 months was expiring, that you would be coming for an extension of the 12 months.

Mr. NICKLES. In the underlying Daschle amendment that was introduced a week or so ago, it was a 2-year program; isn't that correct?